The UK’s top investment banks, law firms and consultancies have cited The University of Nottingham as one of the best universities for finding graduate recruits.

According to a new study by High Fliers Research, the University is one of only a small handful of universities which are first choice for graduates amongst the UK’s leading 100 graduate employers.

The report is based on research conducted during December 2012 with the UK's 100 leading graduate employers including BP, the Civil Service, IBM, Goldman Sachs, PwC, Google and HSBC.

Click here for full story

Top choice for graduate employers

In a list of universities targeted most often by top employers, Nottingham was second, with Cambridge fourth and Oxford seventh.

The majority of the UK's top 100 graduate employers will target students at 20 or fewer universities, with one-in-five firms having scaled back funding for their graduate recruitment programmes compared with last year.

Dr Paul Greatrix, Registrar at The University of Nottingham said: “At Nottingham our graduates do exceptionally well and we have some of the highest employment rates in the UK, with our average salary levels for Nottingham graduates being above the UK average.

“More importantly, students studying with us will not only receive a first rate academic experience, both in the UK and internationally, but they will also have a well-rounded and rich experience during their time here, which will enable them to acquire skills and additional learning from extra-curricular activities. We are particularly proud of our Nottingham Advantage Award, which is a scheme specifically run to enhance our students’ skills whilst studying their degree.”

Career development

The Nottingham Advantage Award enables students to take extra-curricular modules alongside their academic studies, which build skills and experience in areas such as PR, finance and career planning through activities with the University’s Careers and Employability Service, Widening Participation and the Students’ Union.

Dr Greatrix adds: “The results of this study show that this combination of skills and education makes them even more attractive to potential employers.”

High Fliers

Managing director of High Fliers Research, Martin Birchall speaking on Sky News said: “People outside of the recruitment industry may think that the main priority for employers is academic results when in actual fact, the reality is that the academic results achieved by students are only about a fifth of the equation of what it takes to get a good gradate job.

"Work experience is top of the list and a set of well-rounded business skills is important . The top three universities – Warwick, Nottingham and Manchester, have a diverse output of graduates many of whom have the experiences employers are looking for.

“The sort of experience that students at these top universities get is a rich student life – they have leadership skills and can bring benefits above and beyond just academic achievement to employers.”

The firms surveyed by the report said they were more likely to use social media to promote their graduate schemes than in previous years – 71 per cent said they planned to increase their emphasis on this approach – but one-in-four said they would be putting fewer resources into traditional university career fairs.

The Graduate Market in 2013 report also showed students are being approached earlier in their university careers, with 42 of the top 100 firms saying they were more likely to promote graduate roles to first-year students than in previous years. Twenty-eight of the top firms said they were targeting penultimate year students more than they had done in the past.

Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham, described by The Sunday Times University Guide 2011 as ‘the embodiment of the modern international university’, has 40,000 students at award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia. It is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 75 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) and the QS World University Rankings. It was named ‘the world’s greenest university’ in the UI GreenMetric World University Ranking 2011.

More than 90 per cent of research at The University of Nottingham is of international quality, according to the most recent Research Assessment Exercise. The University’s vision is to be recognised around the world for its signature contributions, especially in global food security, energy & sustainability, and health. The University won a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2011, for its research into global food security.

Story credits

More information is available from Charlotte Anscombe, Media Relations and Campaign Manager, Marketing, Communications and Recruitment at The University of Nottingham, charlotte.anscombe@nottingham.ac.uk, +44 (0)115 74 84 417.